The Brooklyn Eagle (July 2, 1944)
GREAT BARRAGE OPENS CAEN SHOWDOWN
Rommel and Monty square off
Vast armies wheeling into battle positions
By Phil Ault
London, England (UP) –
Vast Allied forces streamed to the Caen front tonight for a showdown battle on the road to Paris with seven German panzer divisions believed under Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s personal command, as U.S. troops wiped out the last enemy resistance on Cherbourg Peninsula.
It was again Rommel vs. Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery and as the desert antagonists squared away their forces, a tremendous artillery barrage by both sides, reminiscent of the night before El Alamein, was thundering across the Norman orchards, filling the sky with flame.
A German DNB broadcast heard by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said that new Allied landings were being effected behind a thick smokescreen east of the Orne estuary above Caen. German reconnaissance pilots sighted an Allied fleet of about 300 vessels in front of the estuary, including battleships and heavy and light cruisers, the agency said.
Le Havre reported shelled
A German Transocean News Agency broadcast said that Allied battleships were shelling the town and harbor of Le Havre.
German counterattacks intending to ease the British stranglehold continued for the fifth day, but on a diminished scale, and Empire troops recaptured ground which had been temporarily lost along the shoulders of their salient across the Odon River below Caen.
A late communiqué said both sides were stalemated along the looping front formed by the Allied bridgehead across the Odon southwest of Caen. No new Allied gains were reported, but several Nazi attempts to infiltrate the British lines around Esquay, at the center of the bridgehead, were repulsed.
Fail to penetrate ‘bulge’
Front reports said the Germans made a dozen small-scale attacks against the western base of the British salient, on the west bank of the Odon around Granville and Rauray, where the enemy lost 25 tanks.
Up to a late hour this evening, a British staff officer said, the enemy has failed in all his probing attacks against the Allied bulge.
The last communiqué also reported that a “small” pocket of German resistance on the Cap de la Hague, at the northwestern tip of the Cherbourg Peninsula, has been reduced further.
Montgomery expected to strike
The period of regrouping and jockeying is almost over and official quarters said it is clear that Montgomery will soon spear deep into the interior of France to speed the destruction of the Wehrmacht.
United Press correspondents Ronald Clark reported from the Caen front that hundreds upon hundreds of vehicles were jampacking roads leading from the beaches in preparation for the decisive battles.
Rommel, with 250,000 troops and possibly 1,000 tanks at his command, may try an upsetting attack as he did with disastrous results before the Mareth Line. At best, he could only delay the start of Montgomery’s offensive, it was said.
Cherbourg resistance ends
The end of German resistance in the Cherbourg area came when Lt. Gen. Omar N. Bradley’s Yanks mopped up Cape de la Hague by capturing the villages of Omonville-la-Petite, Omonville-la-Rogue and Gréville.
A few stragglers remained to be hunted down in the woods, the last of 50,000 enemy troops who fell captive or died on the field in the brief but bloody battle for Cherbourg Port.
A German DNB broadcast admitted that the fight for Cherbourg and the northern capes of the peninsula had ended. Between 30 and 40 minesweepers entered Cherbourg Saturday and garrisons in German strongpoints commanding the roadstead had no more ammunition with which to attack them, DNB said.
The Germans also reported that U.S. troops had “gone over to the offensive” in the Saint-Lô area at the base of the peninsula, supported by strong artillery, armored and air forces, but Allied headquarters said only local operations were in progress.
These resulted in the capture of a cluster of villages north of Saint-Lô, including Le Mesnil, La Raulet, La Conterie, Les Puteaux and Le Carillon; and two others northwest of the road center – La Fossardière and Cloville.